Prime minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday asked Japan’s financial regulator to draw up measures to relax the rules that separate banking and broking businesses.

The move is expected to boost foreign investment in the country’s financial sector and ease business for its major banks, which at present can own securities businesses only as independent subsidiaries and face limits on how they operate. It is part of a drive by Mr Abe’s government to raise Tokyo’s competitiveness as a global financial centre.